CNN's Scott Jennings at the CNN Republican Presidential Debate in Des Moines, Iowa on January 10, 2024 (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
CNN’s “Table for Five” panel pressed Republican strategist Scott Jennings to admit President Donald Trump’s contribution to a decade’s worth of inflammatory rhetoric.
“I'm pretty tired of conservatives gaslighting about the current political environment and Donald Trump's rhetoric when all of this escalation can be traced back to his entrance into American politics,” said Meidas Touch Gen Z writer Adam Mockler. “His claim to fame was saying that Obama wasn't born in America. He was the first presidential candidate to have his crowd chant, ‘lock her up’ about a political opponent. … I've spent all of my formative years throughout high school, throughout college, looking to the president — who I'm supposed to be able to look up to — and seeing somebody who's trying to place blame on the left, who's ramping up the rhetoric constantly.”
“Trump first ran ten years ago. And you’re connecting that to a guy, ten years later, shooting up an ICE facility? Can't you just take responsibility for it on the left?” Scott said, also referencing the assassination of MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk and left-leaning protests against Israel genocide in Palestine. “The left has radicalized to the point of saying, ‘we're done talking, and we're going to start shooting.’”
“I said Donald Trump created this environment over the past decade. You sit here and say, ‘I need to take responsibility.’ I'm a 22-year-old YouTuber. You hold me to a higher standard than the president vomiting vitriol out of his mouth about how the other party is weak and evil.” Mockler said. “He just [called us], the party of hate, evil and Satan. You blind yourself to that, and you're focusing on a 22-year-old YouTuber.”
“There is no evidence whatsoever that the Democrats want to cool anything off since Charlie,” Jennings argued. “They don't vote that way. They don't talk that way. We have people tweeting out here that ‘we're going to deport the CEO of Sinclair [Broadcast Group]’ and ‘we're going to put Elon Musk in prison.’ It is honestly wild out there on the left.”
“Scott, that is so disingenuous,” said CNN commentator Alyssa Farah Griffin. “I have received threats from the right and from the left. The president of the United States would do well to echo [Charlie Kirl’s widow] Erika Kirk, who showed a message of grace and of unity in a moment that called for it. You know that [Mockler’s] generation has never even seen normal politics [thanks to Trump].”
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